The fatal flaws of compassionate conservation

Abstract

Article impact statement: Wallach et al.’s framing of compassionate conservation is flawed and impractical and could be dangerous for people, wildlife, and ecosystems.

Deconstructing compassionate conservation

“…; Oommen et al. ). Compassionate conservationists advocate translocating dingoes ( Canis lupus dingo ) to control cats and foxes (Wallach et al.…”

“…Traditionally, stakeholders have often been humans and wildlife. For example, the creation of protected areas to conserve wildlife may force people out of their homelands, and the strict enforcement of these protected area boundaries and rules may limit the ability of people to feed themselves (West et al 2006;Oommen et al 2019). Compassionate conservationists advocate translocating dingoes (Canis lupus dingo) to control cats and foxes .…”

“…Mainstream conservationists are only beginning to recognize the risks of elements of the compassionate conservation philosophy (Fleming & Ballard 2018;Driscoll & Watson 2019;Oommen et al 2019;Rohwer & Marris 2019). At a time when resources for conservation are stretched and urgent action is required, conservationists must focus on maximizing conservation success or they risk losing critical funding and support in favor of inefficient and ineffective strategies.…”

Consequences Matter: Compassion in Conservation Means Caring for Individuals, Populations and Species

“…The concept of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) is used in many countries to assess the benefit to human well-being and life expectancy against demands on a limited budget [40]. However, as Hayward et al [6] pointed out, trade-offs such as these are not compatible with the extreme version of Compassionate Conservation advocated by Wallach et al Oomen et al drew attention to the potential for substantial costs to humans resulting from an extreme perspective on the moral salience of non-human sentience [31].…”

“…Poisoning by the invasive cane toad (Rhinella marina) leads to the death of many predators in more than 50 countries globally-but compassionate conservationists oppose the use of novel methods for their control or eradication. In human-animal conflicts, failure to eliminate problem animals can have lethal consequences both for other animals and for people [31]. While it has been said that these apparently perverse outcomes are problematical for compassionate conservationists and 'the suffering they seek to prevent by adhering to virtue ethics' [27], recall that virtue ethics is not necessarily driven primarily by concern for consequences.…”